


reflect more than light

by growlery writes (growlery)



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Other, mundane AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 17:35:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15344973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery%20writes
Summary: Echo’s the model for Grand’s life drawing class. Grand’s doing extra research.





	reflect more than light

Echo likes making eye contact with people in their life drawing class. They don't do it all the time; they're here to get fucking paid and they don't want to come off like they're not taking this seriously.

Mostly, they spend the hour they have to sit naked in front of two dozen strangers looking what they hope is at least somewhat meaningfully into the middle distance. The first time, it was an accident. They looked up and a boy at the back was already staring right at them, studying the winsome features of Echo's face, or whatever. Echo quirked their eyebrows at him, and he went a truly endearing shade of scarlet, and something fizzed through Echo, not power but something like it, something like control over this body they aren't always at home in.

So they do it on purpose, now, sometimes. It's good for the art, probably, and it makes the hour go by a little quicker.

Today's victim is a boy wearing a purple and neon green flannel vest, and Echo doesn't so much choose him as be drawn to the giant motherfucking eyesore in the middle of the room. He's not looking at Echo right now, focused on the page in front of him, but Echo is patient. Echo can wait.

The boy looks up. He meets Echo's eyes slowly, deliberately, and Echo holds back a smirk because, oh, this is new. The boy's hand is still moving, Echo can see out of the corner of their eye, but he's looking straight at them, too, a focused intensity to his gaze that thrills through Echo's body.

It's almost strong enough to outshine his vest. Almost.

At the end of the class, when Echo emerges fully dressed from the teaching office, the boy is waiting, flicking through an art book like he's not.

"Hey," Echo says, and he turns, smiles.

"I'm Grand Magnificent," he says, and Echo says, "Is that a line, because it's almost cringey enough to work."

"It's my name." The boy, Grand, Echo supposes, blinks. "Says _Echo Reverie_."

"Point not taken," Echo says breezily. "So was it? An awful as fuck pick up line, I mean."

"Do you get that a lot?"

"Actually, no," Echo says, "far less than I was led to believe when I told people I signed up to be a nude model."

Grand laughs. "I guess it's sort of a line," he says. "Let me take you for coffee? I have some questions."

Echo's face twists into something between a smile and a frown. For all Grand's horrendous fashion sense and obvious art school hipster sensibilities, he's very pretty, and Echo likes the sound of coffee and all the things that it might lead to. Questions, however, sound much less fun.

"Questions," Echo draws out, and Grand nods intently.

"This whole thing," he says, gesturing around the room, "it's so fucking impersonal, you know? How are you supposed to create art, real art, real art that means something to someone somewhere, when you're always at arm's length? You've got to get inside of it, you've got to examine it from all angles, you've got to really feel it. You know?"

Echo blinks. So they were right about the art school hipster sensibilities, then.

(They were also right about Grand Magnificent being pretty, dizzyingly so, lit up like a fever dream under the harsh overhead lighting, mouth slick and red from where he's been tonguing his lips.)

"Sure," Echo says, thinking _You want to get inside me_ , thinking about Grand's red mouth, some shivery feeling washing over them.

"I do sculpture," Grand continues. "I think I'm gonna use my piece from this class as the basis of one of my final works. And like, it'd be fine as it is, you know? But it wouldn't be good, it wouldn't be a fucking masterpiece, and I only make fucking masterpieces."

Echo has already forgotten the shivery feeling. 

"Jesus," they say. 

The joke - _Call me Grand Magnificent_ \- is in his fucking eyes, and if Echo has to hear it, they're going to need something a lot stronger than coffee.

"You're buying," they tell him, grabbing him by the arm to haul him out of the studio. "Come on."

*

"So this is what I have so far," Grand says, flipping through his sketchbook. Echo got extra marshmallows in their hot chocolate and they fish them out one by one while Grand finds what he's looking for.

After a minute, he pushes the sketchbook towards Echo, and they lean forward to get a better look at the page he's opened it to. Echo's first thought is that it's fucking weird to see a drawing of their naked body, both more and less generous than the rendition a mirror gives, and their second thought is, well, more of the same, honestly.

"I wish I was that buff," is their final verdict, before they lean back and sip their now marshmallow-free drink. Grand pulls the sketchbook back towards himself, frowning down at it, but his face quickly clears.

"You are," he says, then, "You don't think it's missing something?"

"You haven't drawn my dick yet," Echo says, and Grand gives them a stony look. "I don't know, man. I'm not the artist. What do you think it's missing?"

"I'm not sure," Grand says.

Echo looks sidelong at Grand, then down at the sketchbook. "Can I?" they ask, and he shrugs.

They flip the page and start going through it; there are a couple of sketches of indistinct figures, detached limbs and faces, more boxy-looking mechanical shapes, some clearly a mixture of metal and flesh. Echo is, despite themself, impressed, though they’re careful not to show it on their face. Grand Magnificent’s ego clearly doesn’t need any encouragement. 

They turn to the last page and have to stifle a laugh. It's them, loose purple hair falling over the jacket they stole from Ballad, which they’re sure they've never worn to the art studio.

"Creep," they say, no heat to their voice, and Grand shrugs again.

"It's a small campus," he says. "Of course I've seen you around."

Echo tilts their head. Questions, Grand had said, but he's not asked anything yet.

"Where," they say. They find Grand's eyes the same way they did earlier, and Grand swipes his tongue over his lips.

"There was a party," Grand says. "My friend Even and his frat buddies. I saw you do a backflip off a table, it was pretty sick."

"You know Even?"

Grand's eyebrows raise. " _You_ know Even?"

"We hooked up for a while," Echo says, and there's that light again, edged with something other than curiosity. Or at least, Echo hopes it is. Their interest really should have waned, Grand's an _asshole_ , but instead of thinking about that they're thinking about the miniscule gap between their thighs, what things Grand's face might do if Echo kissed him.

“Just the party?” they ask, purposefully light, and Grand shrugs. 

“I saw you coming out of the gym a bunch of times,” he says. “I sketch in the park a lot.”

“Ah,” Echo says; there’s a park just opposite the school gym where his parkour group meets sometimes. Grand fidgets. 

“Do you work out?” he asks, with mechanical disinterest, and Echo smiles lazily. 

“Yeah,” they say. “I do a lot of martial arts.” Grand can't hold the disinterest in his eyes, and Echo’s smile turns into a grin. “I'm partial to swords.”

“Ah,” Grand says, a conscious echo, and Echo grins. 

“Do you know what’s missing?” they say, flipping back to the boxy shapes. “A giant fuckoff robot.”

“Yeah,” Grand says, thoughtful. “It should have a sword.”

Echo makes a noncommittal noise. “I do have a sword.”

“Show me,” Grand says, and there's that tongue, swiping across his lips. 

Echo doesn't make the obvious joke about showing Grand their _sword_ , even though their entire body is itching to; the shivery feeling is back, and they don't wanna lose it, this time. They just nod. 

*

There's a doodle on the whiteboard outside Echo's dorm room, a scribble of what would look nothing like an ice skater if it had not been helpfully labelled as such. Underneath the annotation, it says _back late xoxo gig._

They grin. “Roommate’s out,” they say to Grand. “Got the place to ourselves.”

Grand peers at the whiteboard. “Gig Kephart?” Echo gives him a weird look and Grand repeats, “Small campus. Everyone watches his vlogs.”

“Everyone but me,” Echo says, and opens the door, holds it wide for Grand. “My bed's on the left. Make yourself comfy.”

Echo’s sword hangs on a hook they stuck to the side of their closet with double-sided sticky tape and a prayer. When they turn around, Grand is staring at their crotch, which means a second ago he was staring at their ass. 

They bite their lip around a grin, feel their heartbeat quicken. Grand’s eyes drag up to their face. 

“Research,” he says, utterly unapologetic. “You lose a lot with stillness. It's very useful, seeing you in motion.”

From anyone else, it'd sound like an excuse, but Grand, clearly, is not like anyone else. He still looks like he does in class, absorbed but not distant, very much in the moment. 

They draw their sword from its hilt, slowly, watching Grand’s eyes follow the motion. “How about now?”

Grand hums. He reaches out to touch the end before Echo can tell him not to and swears, quickly withdrawing his hand. “It’s sharp.” 

“Of fucking course it’s sharp, Magnificent,” Echo says, sounding more fond than he had meant to. “It’s a sword.”

He makes a face. “Grand Magnificent, it, it's a mononym,” he says, like he has to say it a lot, and Echo nods. 

“Grand Magnificent,” they say. Grand’s balled his hand into a fist, keeps squeezing it; Echo sheathes their sword and goes to dig out a band-aid from their first aid kit. 

“It’s fine,” Grand says, and Echo ignores him, taking his hand and peeling his fingers off one by one. It’s not a deep cut, but it is still bleeding, so Echo feels justified in their actions. If their hand lingers a little longer than it really needs to pressing the band-aid to his skin, well. Grand doesn’t shake them off. 

“Thanks,” he says, a little rough, and when Echo looks up, his eyes are dark and heavy. Echo barely has time to form a thought about kissing him before Grand’s surging up, nearly knocking them off their feet, kissing _them_. 

Echo gets on board quickly, gripping Grand’s shoulders and climbing into his lap. Grand groans against their mouth and Echo flushes hot, rocks down against Grand without consciously deciding to. That draws another groan out of Grand, and Echo’s thinking about doing it again, harder, when behind them, the door opens and Gig cheerfully calls out, “Honey, I’m- _shit_!”

Grand yelps, shooting backwards on Echo’s bed. Echo drags their hands down their face. 

“You said,” they grit out, “you’d be back late.”

They turn, slowly, to face Gig, whose face is scarlet; he just splutters for a second before he manages, “It _is_ late!”

“I’m just gonna,” Grand says, and all but runs out of the room past Gig. 

“Let us never speak of this again,” Gig says grimly, and Echo throws themself back on the bed where Grand had been with a sigh. 


End file.
